Shrink a video for Gmail or Outlook, with a still and a GIF preview
Gmail accepts 25 MB of attachments and Outlook.com 20 MB, but both count the encoded message, and email encoding makes a file about a third larger. A 19 MB video can already fail. This recipe compresses each video to a 14 MB target, which fits both once encoded, and makes two things to put in the message itself: a small JPG still from the first second and a 4-second GIF that plays inline in most mail apps, so people see what the video is before they open it.
The workflow
You addOne or more videos (MP4, MOV, WebM and more)
Branch 1
Compress Video
Target 14 MB, MP4
14 MB grows to about 19 MB when encoded for email, under Outlook.com's 20 MB and Gmail's 25 MB. The target sets the bitrate from the video's length, so long videos lose more detail than short ones.
Rename files
video-email.mp4
Marks the copy made for sending, so it is not confused with the original.
Branch 2 · from the same files
Video Frame Extractor
Frame at 1 second, JPG
The very first frame is often black or blurred while the camera starts. One second in usually shows the scene.
Image Resizer
Longest side 1280 px
A message body is a few hundred pixels wide; 1280 px stays sharp on high-density screens without bloating the email.
Branch 3 · from the same files
Video to GIF
1–5 s, 480 px wide, 10 fps, looping
Most mail apps play GIFs inline, so a short loop previews the video right in the message. Four seconds at 480 px and 10 fps stayed under 1 MB in our test.
You getPer video: a 14 MB MP4, a 1280 px JPG still and a 480 px GIF
A measured run
We ran this recipe on 1 October 2026 in a Chromium-based desktop browser on a Mac, with our own 40.9-second 1080p screen recording (H.264, no sound, 15.5 MB).
At 12.8 MB the copy is about 17.5 MB once encoded for email, under both limits. The compressor kept full 1080p because 14 MB leaves enough bitrate for 41 seconds; for a longer video it lowers the resolution. A screen recording has large flat areas, so camera footage with movement and grain looks softer at the same size.
Will 14 MB look good?
That depends on the length. A 30-second clip at 14 MB has plenty of bitrate and looks close to the original on a phone. A five-minute video squeezed into 14 MB gets only a small fraction of that per second and will look soft. For long videos, trim the part that matters first or share a link instead.
The compressor also lowers the resolution when the target leaves too little bitrate for the original size. Check the result in the step's output pane before downloading.
How to use the workflow
- Select Open this workflow, then add your videos in the Input pane.
- Select Run workflow. All three branches run from the same input files.
- Attach the MP4 from Rename files, and insert the JPG or GIF into the message body.
Changing the target
- Only sending through Gmail? A target of 18 MB still fits once encoded.
- A work server with a 10 MB limit: set the target to about 7 MB.
- Want the clip shorter first? Add Trim Video before Compress Video.
Questions
Which browsers can run this?
Video steps need WebCodecs, which current versions of the major desktop and phone browsers provide. A browser that cannot encode the video stops the step with an error instead of producing a broken file.
Is the video uploaded to be compressed?
No. Decoding and encoding happen in your browser, and large outputs are written to the browser's private storage, not to a server.
Does the GIF have sound?
No. GIFs are silent pictures; the MP4 keeps the sound.